So I was able to finally get my hands on a Wii. My mom really wanted one after the neighbor kids got one last christmas. I've always been really iffy about the wii. I guess I'm being a graphics whore when that is the first thing I dislike about the wii.

but after getting one, and playing the heck out of the Wii Sports that comes with the system, my mind is changing. Its quite enjoyable, minus the 'Wii Arm' I'm getting a bit of.

Its really cool to be playing with my mom. I guess its a "bonding experience" Its really cool to see her enjoy something that I enjoy a lot.

Later this saturday, we are going to go shopping for peripherals. Which is somewhat frustrating. I spend 250 on a console but I still have to spend 100-200 on peripherals I mean, I did the same thing with my 360, but I guess with the Wii being touted as a "party/family game system" one would think it would come with 2 controllers.

So today I had my field trip for my Computer Forensics Course. We went to the CART Headquarters and FBI Training Center in Quantico, VA.

It was an absolutely fantastic experience. If I wasn't psyched for a job in the FBI, I now am moreso.

I woke up around 5 (i use 'woke up' loosely, because I don't think I got a wink of sleep) and got to my school's campus at about 6:30. We set out for the 3 1/2 hour drive at about 7. The drive was really great because it was nonstop conversation about anything and everything. I had hitched a ride with my teacher and he is no doubt, my idol

When we got there, we first toured the CART facility, which is an acronym for Computer Analysis and Response Team. We had a few presentations on what they do there at the facility, Then we took the tour of the "office" which is essentially a "geek-gasm" Each workstation was about 15 ft and was in a 'U' shape. Each station had about 4 computers and different hard drives, books, digital media, papers, toys and folders scattered about. Then we toured the server room, a very chilly place with thick... strands of fiber wire snaking about.

The group then stopped for a collective snake/souvenir break in the Training Facility; before moving on to Hogans Alley, which is about 3 mock, but fully functional city blocks used for training. They had everything from a drug store, hotel, car lot, movie theater and many others. There we learned that they use "real" firearms in the training. Actual 9mm handguns but instead of live ammo, the weapons fired paintball rounds. The adjunct professor/FBI Agent that got us the tour (did I mention that an actual FBI Agent helped teach my computer forensics course?) told us of his training in Hogans Alley.

After much strolling along as if lost in a small town, we made our way to the campus' new facilty known as the Titanic, A huge building many stories and probably a few football fields large. After snaking our way about, we had a really interesting presentation on document forensics. Piecing together burned or shredded documents, finding hidden messages (such as ones written in invisible ink, read urine) in or on documents. Again, extremely interesting stuff.

We then doubled back through the nearly vacant Training facility and took the grand tour. We actually got to watch a class going on about close quarters combat ("CQ...C? for those who get the reference) and that was essentially the last of it.

Again, a very interesting ride back that was mostly plagued by talk of food, obviously so... we hadn't eaten in about 6 hours, after lots, and lots, and lots of walking.

Overall a great field trip and something I will remember forever. Now... if only I could go there for actual training

So today Ubuntu 8.04 Distro was released. So I downloaded and installed it. And so far, Its pretty sweet

I was having some driver issues, but after some fidgeting, I got my wireless card working and enabled the sweet effects

I'm really enjoying it. Fast to boot, more or less easy to operate.

Right now I'm using Wine, a sort of windows emulator to download and install WoW. Muhahahaha

Everyone else, enjoy your slow bothersome OS

So Today we had our Grand Opening at the new best buy I work at. I work for the geek squad if you didn't already know

Last night we had our "members only" night, in which the reward zone people were able to get in. This morning we had our "soft opening" and then we closed for a few hours, and then had our "Grand openings" I feel like my store is a hooker >___>

The past 3 weeks have been absolutely crazy. The first week we had our general training on how best buy works, and store stocking (boy, was that boring ).

I've crammed all this information about how stuff goes down at geek squad, best buy, and all the other departments I frequent, into my brain. But I'm really confident in my abilities. I'm a good learner.

But after all, I've learned and retained a lot and I'm pretty sure I'll be moving up the managment ladder because both my managers are looking to move up, and there's going to be an open spot that needs to be filled i think I'm going to be a shoe in, seeing as I'm essentially handling 2 - 3 roles at the same time

So that's the past 3 weeks in a nutshell. Lots of fun stuff happening, etc.

P.S. apparently I got "tagged" to do something... not sure what though >___>

The DMCA and DRM are both short acronyms that can have a huge impact upon a person's life if they aren't careful. The DMCA is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This is a document that forms a basic, but fundamentally flawed, outline of how digital media can be accessed, copied, protected and pirated. DRM is the acronym for Digital Rights Management. DRM can be software-side or hardware-side protections on specific types of media.

The DMCA was signed into law October 28, 1998. It incorporated six international intellectual protection ides into one (flawed) document. These include, Two WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) treaties, the Copyright and Performances and Phonogram treaties; Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act; Computer Maintenance Competition Assurance Act; miscellaneous provisions newly introduced into the document; And the Vessel Hull Design Protection Act(all of this information was pulled from the PDF of the document). I'll not go into these too deeply, but, like in many cases, its a group of ideas that look good on paper but are terribly executed.

If one googles "Problems with DMCA" they get a whole host of hits. One in particular is quite good. In an article written by Tim Lee, he outlines many flaws that come with the DMCA. One glaring flaw is that "The DMCA errs because it focuses on a technological means-—circumvention—-rather than a criminal end—-piracy." (Anderson) This is a very important argument, because the DMCA imposes limitations upon a user's rights to express Fair Use (defined later in this paper).

"But the DMCA's anti-circumvention clause does not take into account anything but a person's actions. If you break the encryption on a DVD, you have committed a crime. It doesn't matter if you are exercising your fair use rights to backup the disc, it does not matter if you are trying to make a disc from Britain play in your machine, and it does not matter if you simply want to remove the non-skippable commercials. If you crack the CSS encryption, a crime has been committed."(Anderson)

The limitations put on Fair Use by the DMCA is almost criminal. But if the DMCA were to be repealed, would that necessarily create a state of "intellectual property anarchy[?] Prior to the DMCA's enactment, the courts had already been developing a body of law that strikes a sensible balance between innovation and the protection of intellectual property."(Anderson) This obviously begs the question, why have the DMCA in the first place?

Another important factor in the dance between fair use and intellectual property protection, is DRM. DRM essentially locks up your media, your programs, your CD's your DVD's. And once again, it takes steps to intrude upon your Fair Use Rights. One thing that DRM encroaches upon, which I find to be one of the most important things about the Internet, anonymity. DRM allows for music players or any other type of program to access a central database and essentially profile you so that on the surface, companies can force their product which suits your taste down your throat. But at the same time, companies could essentially gouge customers for prices depending on their liking. DRM is, in my eyes, the bane of a free market. DRM can (and in many cases does) limit what a user can use to view specific media.

So what's all this Fair Use that I keep speaking of. It is essentially a user's rights to, within certain boundaries, express certain rights reserved for copyright holders. There are four important factors in determining whether an action is protected by Fair Use. I'll not go into these, but they are actually quite extensive rights that you have over your own media.

With the advent of DRM and the DMCA, Fair Use rights are slowly being taken away; Primarily in the name of protecting a company's profit. And, in protecting a company's profit, it takes away from a community's rights of Innovation, Fair Use, and most of all Choice.

Citations

Anderson, Nate. "Cato Institute outlines problems with the DMCA." From The News Desk 22 march 2006 04 march 2008 .